


This Is What Would Happen

by Tafka



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Bad Ending, M/M, POV character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:01:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23178151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tafka/pseuds/Tafka
Summary: The Chargers die. Bull remains with the Ben-Hassrath. Ultimately, the Qun will call on him to turn on the Inquisition, and on the man he loves.
Relationships: Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	This Is What Would Happen

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to LauraEMoriarty for the beta!
> 
> And a last warning to heed the tags, there's no happy ending here.

Bull didn’t remember much about the rest of that day. He knew he had moved through it more or less normally, knew he’d spoken to Lavellan afterwards, and might have even spoken to Gatt. He didn’t remember what he’d said, done, or eaten for dinner, but he did remember sitting alone in his tent that night, listening to the Storm Coast rain against the oilcloth and feeling not much of anything. He unrolled his bedding and bundled against the chill and went to sleep without the sound of Rocky’s snoring from five tents over.

Somewhere along the road back to Skyhold, he managed to compartmentalize the loss. His Chargers were gone. They had been good men, and they had fought well, and their sacrifice meant some other good men on the dreadnaught had lived. This is what had happened. He was going to go back to Skyhold with the Inquisitor (who had made the call) to continue the fight against Corypheus. He would continue to report on their movements to Par Vollen. The alliance between the Inquisition and the Qun would make both stronger. This is what would happen.

Varric and Cassandra took turns giving him sad looks the entire way back.

* * *

The first night back in Skyhold, there was a knock at Bull’s door, after almost everyone was asleep. He knew who it was without asking, but cracked the door open anyway. Dorian was there, face cast in shadows by the magelight that trailed behind him. He was holding a bottle of wine.

“Not in the mood tonight, Sparkler.” Bull moved to close the door, but Dorian had already wedged his body in, and pushed back.

“Kaffas, Bull! I’m not here for that!” He straightened up when Bull gave in and let the door spring open. “I came to… When I heard, I didn’t think you’d want to be alone.”

Bull rolled his shoulders. He’d already been alone, the six days of travel back to Skyhold. With the Inquisitor, with Varric, and Cassandra, and Gatt, but alone. But wasn’t he supposed to never truly be alone, under the Qun?

He didn’t pursue the thought further. Dorian had brought alcohol, which was welcome; and his company, which was also welcome, Bull realized. He let Dorian finish pushing his way into the room, then watched Dorian rummage around his desk for glasses. 

Dorian’s hands came in contact with no less than three highly classified reports before he uncovered two mismatched cups. They were the same cups they had drunk mead from previously, weeks ago, after sex. The drinking would be different, this time, the wine would be different, the reason different, but the cups remained the same.

He contemplated this constancy of being while Dorian poured. “I thought I should bring you something respectable to drink with tonight. For… well it’s better than that Maraas-lok that you made Lavellan drink.”

He looked at the bottle. Tevinter wine. Altus’ wine. Better than his own brew, certainly. Better than the Soporati wine Krem preferred as well. More expensive at least. And now he would drink to Krem’s memory with better wine than he’d ever drunk in life, probably. How ridiculous. How like the bas. 

Dorian lifted his cup, and spoke some words of meaning, and the Iron Bull murmured in agreement. They drank. Then Dorian was quiet, and Bull realized it was his turn to speak. He did not care to, so he drank some more. Dorian did not censure him, he just refilled both their cups.

There was silence for a while, but it was not the silence of being alone, the quiet of absence that had been plaguing Bull since the Storm Coast. Eventually, he found himself speaking into the silence, saying meaningless things that came to his mind, but that Dorian nodded solemnly to, as if they were pearls of wisdom instead of random facts about those now dead:

Skinner carved wood, in her spare time, not into figures but abstract shapes, formed to her hand, then discarded them when she got bored. Grim could play the lute, not well, but passably, and only old Ferelden folk tunes. Rocky had a girlfriend, somewhere in the Marches, and sent letters to her regularly, and somewhat clandestinely. Dalish was exiled from her clan for killing another hunter in a brawl over a mutual lover, by accident. Stitches read voraciously, always carrying a novel in among his medical supplies to read in his downtime.

He spoke of these things until he had no words or wine left, and Dorian listened to it all. Somehow, he felt better for that, enough so the feeling of not-aloneness continued even after Dorian took his leave, and Bull drifted off to sleep.

* * *

The days passed. Bull received a vessel he was told contained the ashes collected from the pyre after the massacre at the Storm Coast. Someone had seen to it that they made their way to him. Probably Madame Vivienne, or the ambassador. He regarded the vessel. It contained merely ash.

He thought of what his Chargers would have wanted done with it. They could never agree to anything with unanimity. Just the act of burning their bodies all together would likely cause outcry. If they were around to object, which they were not.

* * *

He went back out in the field with the Inquisitor. He fought for the Inquisition all over southern Thedas, and even went back to the Storm Coast and fought there. Sometimes Dorian went with them, and that was welcome. It gave Bull an excuse to flirt furiously, as welcoming a distraction as he could think of. Dorian didn’t seem to mind it, either; Bull caught him preening under the attention more than once.

When they were at Skyhold, Dorian visited his room more and more often, and not always just for sex. He even stayed the night once, and Bull was surprised to wake up next to him, thinking that he would never be able to fall asleep with someone else in his bed. But he did, and so was treated to the sight of a mussed Dorian first thing in the morning, before he was awake enough to care about his appearance. 

They kissed more than Bull had expected. Dorian seemed endlessly hungry for more of them, and not just as a prelude to sex. Bull would accommodate him, only to find that he enjoyed these expectation-less signs of affection as well. 

The others eventually took notice, and Bull enjoyed that as well. The fact that someone besides himself or Dorian had noticed their closeness made it more real. Cassandra thought they were “good for each other,” Blackwall made lewd asides, and the Inquisitor interrogated them both, but seemed to approve. Dorian and Bull sat next to each other at wicked grace, and Dorian let Bull put his arm around him.

They didn’t talk about their growing closeness much, at least not directly.

* * *

They fought a dragon together, he and his kadan, in the freezing desert of the Hissing Wastes, fighting side-by-side, perfectly in sync, just the way it was meant to be. Dorian’s magic felt as familiar to Bull as his own axe. It was as if Dorian was an extension of himself, not something he could control, but something he could trust, as he trusted his legs to carry him. 

The great beast heaved at them, putting its all into every attack, as did they. It was glorious and it was terrifying and it was life. And he got to experience it with Dorian. 

He asked the Inquisitor if he could take one of the creature's giant teeth as a trophy, and Lavellan readily agreed. Bull cleaned and polished it to a high sheen, then cradled it in his hands as he remembered, back to his childhood, when his tama told him stories about those called “kadan” and the split-tooth necklaces they wore. 

He imagined telling this story to Dorian, imagined giving him the necklace, and in his imagination Dorian understood at once all that “kadan” entailed. It was easy, in imagination, to cross that barrier of comprehension, the gulf between the lives and understandings of a Tevinter Altus and Qunari spy. 

If there was even a chance for Dorian to misunderstand his meaning, or worse, to understand, but not reciprocate...

He never told Dorian the stories. He never gave him a token, never even had the tooth split or set into swirls of silver. It sat in a small pouch in a drawer of his desk, never forgotten.

* * *

One night they lay together in bed, and sleep would not come to either of them, although they had expended a great deal of energy while making love. The rain was pattering against the vaulted roof, and against the windows’ shutters.

Dorian turned to his side, and studied Bull’s face for a long while before speaking, “I have to leave for Tevinter soon.” Dorian’s hair and mustache were mussed, and his eyeliner was smudged, but he did not move to fix it.

Bull hummed in affirmation. He knew this already, although it was never spoken between them before. Dorian had an obligation to his people, just as Bull had his own obligations. Dorian had often spoke of all the changes he would effect in his homeland, and he couldn’t do that from Skyhold.

“I— I don’t want to leave you, amatus, but this is something I must do.” Dorian looked worried, apprehensive. Did he think Bull would be angry?

The Iron Bull didn’t want Dorian to leave either, but he understood that what he wanted, what they both wanted, was meaningless in the face of the greater good. He cradled Dorian’s face in his hand, “I understand,” he said, and kissed him.

* * *

After Dorian left, Bill’s life was filled with letters. There were the usual ones to and from his Ben-Hassrath contacts, in cypher, but now there were the new ones, from Tevinter, in a new kind of code.

All the words were in clear Common, all the sentences made sense on their own, but the real meaning was between the lines:

“I miss you, I miss you, I miss you.”

* * *

He received the briefing in Skyhold, three days before he was slated to accompany Lavellan to the Exalted Council. This one came by way of a viddathari agent, armed with three confirmation codewords.

The Qun was going to attack the Council, and the Inquisition.

What about the alliance? said his tactical mind. The one that was so important at the Storm Coast? The one that was supposed to make the Qun stronger? The one that your boys died for?

“We are allied with the Inquisition” his mouth spoke, a statement of truth.

“That alliance is no longer beneficial to the Qun.”

Something inside him wanted to say “why?” Wanted to question. 

He did not question.

* * *

He compartmentalized. He had to. He put the part of him that was Hissrad, that knew what would happen to everyone at the Council, into a box inside his mind, so that he could go on being the Iron Bull just a little while longer. So that no one would notice. And no one did. Not until the Viddasala showed up and he could finally let the box fall open.

Nothing personal, bas.

Take the mage down first. A basic rule of combat. Bas saarebas were dangerous, and could cast spells to decimate a warrior in the blink of an eye. But this mage was his kadan, and Bull found himself throwing his body in front of Cassandra’s tower shield instead of barreling past to attack Dorian. 

Those who were named kadan were supposed to fight at each other’s side, not to use their strength against each other. It was impossible to do. Hissrad was too weak to obey the Viddasala’s command in this.

His kadan was not so weak, Bull realized, as a wave of unnatural cold terror washed over him. A nameless fear gripped his mind, and he dropped his defenses long enough that Cassandra got one good hit in on his blind side. Lavellan got another from behind, appearing suddenly with a series of lightning-fast slashes.

It was more than just a good hit, he realized, when the terror faded. It was a killing blow. An odd thing to recognize in one’s own body, but Bull had dealt enough of them in his time to know for certain. He took a knee, and Lavellan drove the knives in deeper. 

His fellow Qunari were already dead, burned beside him by Dorian’s magic. The flames hadn’t touched him. No fire, or ice, or entropic power had harmed him in this battle. The only spell Dorian cast upon him was the terror, an attack on his mind, yes, but not one to do permanent damage. Maybe Dorian did know, then, the meaning of kadan. Maybe he also couldn’t bear to kill the man he loved.

Bull went to say something, but couldn’t find the words. He wasn’t sure there were any words his kadan wanted to hear from him. He fixed his gaze on kadan, who was suddenly kneeling by his side. Dorian pressed a hand to the wound in Bull’s side, but his attention stayed on his face, eyes searching for something. If Dorian said anything, Bull didn’t hear it above the rush of his own pulse, pumping out his life’s blood. 

Asit tal-eb. He had done what was asked of him. The Qun could not ask for more, because he had no more to give. Bull had sacrificed everything he had, everything he was, and all there was left was a growing feeling of peace.

It would have been almost pleasant, if not for the pain.


End file.
